Since the appearance of Practical Candleburning Rituals in 1970, thousands of people have brought about positive changes in their lives with the simple but effective techniques of candle magick. Now you can explore the more involved and effective techniques of Advanced Candle Magick.
Here are more powerful rituals that go beyond the simple spells offered in Practical Candleburning Rituals. Explore a wide array of advanced techniques derived from a variety of sources and discover a wealth of new ways to empower and transform your life through candle magick.
More involved than the rituals offered in Practical Candleburning Rituals, here are spells and ceremonies to dramatically improve your confidence, contact spirit guides, start a new job or lose a bad habit, and even to find the perfect mate.
Prepare yourself with ritual baths, consecrated oils, mental and physical exercise—even specific diets to maximize your success. Use astrology, color symbolism, and other magickal techniques to boost the effectiveness of your spells. Learn the secrets of making your own candles and working with herbs and stones to enhance your rituals.
Ray Buckland shows you how to make candle magick an integral and rewarding part of your lifestyle—no matter your religious background or prior experience.
AbouT The AuThor
RAYMOND BUCKLAND was the author of more than sixty books, including bestselling titles Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft and Buckland’s Book of Spirit Communications. Buckland lectured and presented workshops across the United States, and he appeared on major television and radio shows nationally and internationally. His legacy is preserved through the work of the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft.
To WriTe To The AuThor
If you wish to contact the author or would like more information about this book, please write to the author in care of Llewellyn Worldwide, and we will forward your request. Both the author and publisher appreciate hearing from you and learning of your enjoyment of this book. Llewellyn Worldwide cannot guarantee that every letter written to the author will be answered, but all will be forwarded. Please write to:
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Buckland, Raymond.
Advanced candle magick : more spells and rituals for every purpose / Raymond Buckland. -- 1st ed. p. cm. (Llewellyn’s practical magick series)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 13: 978-1-56718-103-6
ISBN 10: 1-56718-103-1 (pbk.)
1. Magic. 2. Rites and ceremonies. 3. Candles and lights. I. Title. II. Series.
BF1623.R6B76 1996
133.4--dc20
95-49693
CIP
Llewellyn Worldwide does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business transactions between our authors and the public.
All mail addressed to the author is forwarded but the publisher cannot, unless specifically instructed by the author, give out an address or phone number.
Llewellyn Publications
A Division of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive Woodbury, Minnesota 55125-2989
www.llewellyn.com
Llewellyn is a registered trademark of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. Printed in the United States of America
oTher bookS by rAyMond bucklAnd
Buckland’s Book of Spirit Communications
Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft
Gypsy Dream Dictionary
Practical Candleburning Rituals
Scottish Witchcraft & Magick
Signs, Symbols & Omens
Solitary Seance
To Meet Your Spirit Guide 164 To Protect from Abuse 171 To Protect on a Journey 178 To Reach a Decision 183 To Release 189 To Start a New Venture 195 To Stop a Bad Habit 201 For Purification 209 For a Birth 217 For a Death 223 For Puberty 230 XII Last Words, or, “But I Can’t Find Any Juniper Berries!”
Table 1: Planetary Hours 244
Table 2: Properties of Planets 245
Table 3: Days, Planetary Rulers, and Attributes 251
Table 4: Symbolism of Colors 252
Table 5: Astral Colors 253
Table 6: Days of the Week 254
Table 7: Magickal Properties of Herbs 255
Table 8: Properties of Precious and Semi-Precious Stones 257
Table 9: Magickal Squares 259
Table 10: Native American Color Symbolism 260
Table 11: Asian Color Symbolism 261
Table 12: Substitutions 262
Table 13: Magickal Alphabets 264
For Tara
Many thanks to Marlene Skilken, Donald Michael Craig, and Debbie Stinner for helpful information.
inTroDuCTion
Low Magick; High Magick
My book, Practical Candleburning, was first published in 1970. Since that time it has gone through three editions—changing its name slightly to Practical Candleburning Rituals—sold well over 200,000 copies (to date; it’s still in print) and been translated into several foreign languages. This reflects that there is a constant interest in Magick and in candleburning Magick specifically. Indeed, candleburning has been done for centuries, if not millennia; and the reason it has been done for so long is that it works! It is effective.
One of the attractions of candleburning is the simplicity of its working. It is what might be termed “Low Magick”—the Magick of the people. (The Magick of Witchcraft—the old religion of the common people—was always Low Magick.) It requires no special tools, and no great investment of money, time, or learning. Since the candleburning Magick I presented in that earlier book has served so well, why present another version?
Simply as a choice. In contrast to Low Magick, there is, as might be expected, High Magick. A good example of High Magick is what is usually termed Ceremonial, or Ritual, Magick. This is a form that requires a great deal of preparation. Elaborate tools are required, which must be made to very specific formulae. A great deal of time and expense is necessary, as is a certain level of
xii ADVANCED CANDLE MAGICK
intelligence. Some rituals of High Magick have taken years to perform. Indeed, some Ceremonial Magicians have worked a lifetime striving to achieve just one particular Magickal goal.
If Low Magick can achieve the same things as High Magick, why would anyone go to all the time and expense of High Magick when they could do it the easier way? That’s a little like asking why someone would pay $200,000 for a Rolls Royce to drive around, when they can pick up a second-hand Volkswagen for less than $2,000! Quality of travel aside, both will get you where you want to go; it’s all a matter of personal preference. That’s really all it is in Magick.
As with the Rolls Royce-Volkswagen simile, there are technical differences, but both can be effective. Some people will continue to prefer the simple, basic rituals of candleburning I presented in Practical Candleburning Rituals, but others are going to prefer what is offered here. The rituals in this book are far more complex than the earlier ones. There is much more preparation before the rituals can even be started. Yet for some people this is all part of Magick; the preparation is an integral part of the rituals. To make special robes to wear for the rites, to construct the working place or Magickal Study in exacting detail, to actually fashion the very candles themselves so that they meet all the requirements—these are all added ingredients that some feel may make the difference between success and failure. The Volkswagen will carry you from A
INTRODUCTION xiii
to B, yes, but in the Rolls Royce there is the comfort of knowing that, although there can be no absolute guarantees against breakdown, every possible item has been covered.
Both High Magick and Low Magick can be effective. As I’ve stated above, which you choose is a matter of personal preference. Choose that which gives you the greatest confidence; that with which you are most comfortable working.
Part One
What is Magick?
IMagIck and ResponsIbIlIty
Magick is not just something from out of the past with no place in the present. It can be as much a part of today as is a television set, a computer, or a turbo-charged sports car. So long as we have things which we desire and events that we wish to happen, there is a place for Magick in our lives. In fact, Magick can bring us that television set, computer, or sports car!
You don’t have to be a Witch (or a Jew, Buddhist, Moslem, or whatever) to do Magick. Magick is a practice, not a religion, although many religions do use Magick as part of their beliefs and practices. You do not have to hold any particular religious beliefs to do Magick. Anyone can do Magick; anyone can be a Magician; anyone can do candleburning Magick.
What is Magick?
Making something that you want happen.
Creating your own reality.
Words and actions affecting physical reality.
A seemingly unnatural happening brought about by human means.
“The science or art of causing change to occur in conformity with the Will.” (Aleister Crowley)
All of the above are acceptable definitions of Magick. Events normally happen following a course of cause-and-effect, although we are invariably unaware of this principle as life flows by in a seemingly haphazard manner. If we can interrupt this flow—this “disorganized pattern”—and make an event occur when and where we want it, then that is Magick. We are making something happen that we want to happen.
Magick can be done by individuals or by groups and there are probably dozens of different forms: “High” Magick; “Low” Magick; imitative or sympathetic; ceremonial or ritual; various religious forms; negative and positive (or “black” and “white”). Your choice may depend upon your need—love, health, wealth, power, or protection—but to work Magick is to take on responsibility.
Ethics of Magick
A so-called “Black” Magician (nothing to do with race) is one who has no ethics where Magick is concerned. He or she has no qualms about interfering with another’s free will. A young woman in love, who sets out to work a spell to draw a particular young man to her, would be included under this heading; she would be a black, or negative, magician! Her goal is to draw that man to her whether he will or no, which is to interfere with his free will. This is perhaps the best criterion upon which to judge Magick as either white (positive) or black (negative). Is your intention to interfere with another’s free will? If so, regardless of your reasons, you should not do it. It’s as simple as that.
Of course, when it comes right down to it, we are manipulating people in just about everything we do in our daily lives! Just to wish someone a good day is to put the thought in their mind that they will have one (manipulation does not have to be negative). To give advice to someone is to put pressure, however slight, upon them to change. Even this type of manipulation is interfering with the person’s free will; so you see how careful you must be in gauging the effect of Magick?
To work healing Magick is very definitely to manipulate. You are deliberately setting out to change the person who needs the healing. Is it right that you do so? Is the suffering perhaps because of some lesson that needs to be learned? Are you then playing God/dess?
AdvAnced cAndle MAgick
One way around this is to always ask permission of the person before doing Magick for him or her—even healing Magick. You might also attempt to put yourself in the other person’s place before doing anything which will affect him or her. In the case of healing, you would probably feel good about the effort being made, but in other cases, such as love spells, it’s not as obvious. It would seem that manipulation is sometimes unavoidable, especially in the case of healings. Let me therefore re-emphasize that whatever sort of Magick you are planning to do, spend some time examining the full, far-reaching effects it will have. If it is going to harm anyone in any way, don’t do it; find a different way to achieve the same end. It’s not always easy to see what repercussions a Magickal act may have. Who is likely to be touched by the changes which you are trying to bring about? How far-reaching will the influence of your Magick be? Many times there can be a domino effect. Therefore, Magick is a discipline which, to be done correctly, needs to be carefully planned and executed. This is why Magick should never be done lightly, and never in a hurry.
Historical Perspective
It is unfortunate that so many powerful acts of Magick which have occurred throughout history have been of
the negative variety. In ancient Egyptian times (c. 1200 b.c.e.), an Egyptian treasury official worked harmful Magick against the Pharaoh Rameses III using a wax image of him. Francis, Earl Bothwell, did the same thing through the agencies of the Berwick coven of Witches, hoping to get rid of King James VI of Scotland and take over the throne. In seventeenth-century France, Catherine de Medici, wife of King Henri II and mother of succeeding kings Francis II, Charles IX, and Henri III, was rumored to have used substantial Magick to bring her sons to the throne and keep them there.
Positive Magick was used by Witches to turn back invasions of England by the Spanish Armada in 1588, and Adolf Hitler’s military in more recent times. A number of individuals were famous (or infamous) in the history of Magick during the last several centuries. Theophrastus Paracelsus, magician-alchemist and giant of the Renaissance, was prominent in early sixteenth-century Europe, as was Henry Cornelius Agrippa, a disciple of Paracelsus. Jacob Böhme, who tried to show how good and evil come from the heart of reality, Robert Fludd, and Joseph Balsamo (known as Count Cagliostro) were all major European Magicians. MacGregor Mathers, Arthur Edward Waite, and the poet W. B. Yeats led Magickal thinking in the late nineteenth century. They were later joined by Aleister Crowley and Israel Regardie.
Picking up where Practical Candleburning Rituals leaves off, this occult classic goes beyond simple spells, offering you new ways to transform your life with the art of candle magick. Explore more advanced and effective techniques for happiness, protection, release, purification, and more.
Renowned author Raymond Buckland shows you how to use visualization, astrology, and color symbolism to supercharge your spellwork. Learn how to make your own candles and maximize your success with herbs, stones, and other tools. Create positive changes in your relationships, finances, health, and spirit by adapting this book’s sample rituals for your own high-powered magick.
Loaded with valuable tips, expert advice, and answers to commonly asked questions, Advanced Candle Magick has stood the test of time and continues to be an essential read for anyone looking to elevate their craft.
RAYMOND BUCKLAND was the author of more than sixty books, including bestselling titles Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft and Buckland’s Book of Spirit Communications. Buckland lectured and presented workshops across the United States, and he appeared on major television and radio shows nationally and internationally. His legacy is preserved through the work of the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft.
